Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#171

Post by odiroot »

resters wrote: post #147

Apple/Google/Microsoft/Amazon do a lot of extremely petty things that should disgust us and give us a glimpse at how this pettiness and adversarial conduct might escalate in a GAI world: - Amazon does not carry Google branded products. ([edit] they do now once again, whew!) - Search in GMail is nearly completely broken when you have too many messages, yet Google (ostensibly a search company) can't deliver good email…

> - Amazon does not carry Google branded products

What do you mean? I just searched on Amazon UK and can easily buy Pixels, Home Nest etc.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#172

Post by afavour »

theklr wrote: post #165
afavour wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it Beeper are deliberately poking the bear. They knew Apple would block their implementation (I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had this replacement ready to go). You don’t have to trust them, if you don’t want to use the service then don’t. They’re highlighting the closed nature of Apple’s messaging system more effectively than anyone has in a long time. I support them in doing that.

Only question is what’s the endgame? It’s not like they’re going to gain meaningful followers from this. This happens every 3-5 years with something Apple does and all that happens is Apple hardens even more, the little guy gets some press for a month and then disappears into the ethers

The context is a little different, with the EU looking into whether iMessage is anticompetitive and should be opened up:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/google-argues-imessa...

I imagine Beeper is providing exhibits A and B for any such court case, should it happen. And they get some good brand publicity along the way.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#173

Post by Nextgrid »

madeofpalk wrote: post #141
haswell wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only thing Beeper does is continue to make Apple look anti-competitive, they've succeeded as far as I'm concerned. I'm deep into the Apple ecosystem and don't see myself getting out anytime soon. But I think their stance on iMessage sucks, even while understanding the strategic reasons they're doing it. I don't see this as "leeching off an undocumented API" as much as demonstrating that iMessage is already in…

What's anti-competitive with what Apple does with iMessage? iMessage's lack of popularity everywhere else in the world is proof that competition is able to flourish. Apple is under no obligation to make an Android app, and it's silly to pretend not making an app for another platform is somehow anti-competetive. The market simply chosing a preference is not anti-competive. iPhone and iMessage is able to compete on it'…

If I have a computer that's technically capable to interoperate and talk with someone else's computer, why should we intentionally restrict that ability?

The answer isn't to say that in other locations we have a different gatekeeper so all is well, the answer should be that Apple's gatekeeping should be broken, and then other gatekeepers' gatekeeping should be broken too.

We should all have one messaging client that can seamlessly use all the major protocols and services - in fact like we used to have over a decade ago.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#174

Post by jonplackett »

I’m really curious how this is possible.

Why wouldn’t every iMessage sent be tied to an Apple ID?

If Beeper can do this, wouldn’t that mean anyone else with the same technique could basically spam iMessage users across the world?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#175

Post by BD103 »

mullingitover wrote: post #94
martinky24 wrote: post #13

These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situ…

The part that's wild to me is that Beeper is collecting revenue from their users for this. Apple doesn't charge for iMessage, and instead that service is funded by device purchases. Beeper is charging people who haven't purchased devices to help them parasitize the infrastructure of the service, and instead of contributing to Apple's operational expenses, they're pocketing the money. There's no scenario where this st…

That was the point I wanted to make. I don’t see Apple letting Beeper make money off of a service they don’t run. If the app was open sourced and free then Apple wouldn't really be able to stop it. Apple can definitely sue them as a business, though.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#176

Post by hamandcheese »

smt88 wrote: post #134
rpmisms wrote: post #2

I have a feeling they're not going to stop being a thorn in Apple's side for quite a while...

They only thorn they're creating for Apple is forcing them to do anticompetitive things while they're being investigated for anticompetitive practices in places like the EU. In terms of technical problems, Apple will likely be able to keep up their end of the arms race with less than 1/2 of a single developer's time. The cost to continue patching Beeper out of their systems will be a fraction of a rounding error for…

I doubt that this can be done that easily without recklessly endangering the experience of their 1+ billion users.

Beeper on the other hand has far fewer users, who by now likely expect a bad experience. Beeper can be way more agile.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#177

Post by mareko »

It's interesting to see how polarizing this topic is. I'm curious if people are just reacting according to the "party line" so to speak, ie based on whether they are iPhone or Android users.

We can do a poll to confirm this without revealing your phone preference.

Just respond with "Affirmative" if you are an iPhone user and dont like this OR you're an Android users and like this. Likewise, respond with "Negative" if you're in the opposite camp.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#178

Post by kernal »

qrohlf wrote: post #29

I’m curious what their best-case outcome is here. It’s fully transparent at this point that Apple has no appetite for a third party iMessage client on any platform and will take whatever technical steps needed to prevent this from happening. I’d wager heavily that even if Beeper plays cat-and-mouse to the point where they’ve exhausted Apple’s budget for blocking them and somehow managed to avoid Apple’s legal team pu…

How many ways does Apple have of blocking Beeper interoperability without major changes to their protocol that breaks existing functionality? They've already exhausted 1 of them without much delay.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#179

Post by misnome »

lacker wrote: post #148
qrohlf wrote: post #29

I’m curious what their best-case outcome is here. It’s fully transparent at this point that Apple has no appetite for a third party iMessage client on any platform and will take whatever technical steps needed to prevent this from happening. I’d wager heavily that even if Beeper plays cat-and-mouse to the point where they’ve exhausted Apple’s budget for blocking them and somehow managed to avoid Apple’s legal team pu…

The best case outcome is to get publicity leading to US and EU antitrust regulators to file a lawsuit against Apple, both of which Apple loses. The conclusion of this lawsuit is that not only must Apple allow access to iMessage, they also must allow changing the default for every component of iOS - messaging app, browser, app store, let you replace Siri with other voice assistants - and to lower the 30% app store fee…

US? When has that ever happened in the last 30 years? I’d buy the EU stepping in to mandate interoperability though. I’d welcome that!

But… shouldn’t mostly everyone here view needing the EU to force the behaviour of a US company kind of against the entire supposed benefit of the US system and the purpose of the domain this forum is hosted on?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#180

Post by grok25 »

ketzo wrote: post #20
rpmisms wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, not the point. The point is to prove that it's possible and relatively simple, and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem.

> and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem. Honest question: is there anyone who doesn't already think that? Even at, like, a legislative level?

[dead]
Post reply on HN